Friday, October 2, 2009

While many positive arguments can be (and are) made to support the general reliability of New Testament history, many of the arguments put forth by Christianity’s detractors are more concerned with a priori reasons why we should be suspicious of its historical claims. Probably the most obvious example of this is the question of whether miracles can be upheld as historical explanations, or even more basically, whether miracles can ever happen at all. A lot of modern historical scholarship is based on the assumption that they cannot.

However, this is not a historical claim about what has happened, it is a philosophical claim about what can happen and what can be allowed into our theories. Unfortunately, most scholars in this field have little to no philosophical training, so this assumption against miracles is more of a reflection of modern academic culture than the result of philosophical analysis. It is, essentially, a bias, dating back to Hume, that any naturalistic explanation is more likely than a supernatural one. A few points should be made about this.

First, why are miracles so improbable? As Kreeft and Tacelli (two philosophers) put it in Handbook of Christian Apologetics, "They are certainly unusual, but how do we know whether they are likely to happen or not? Only if we have already decided whether or not it is likely that God exists -- or that he would ever work a miracle. In that case, calling miracles ‘maximally improbable’ is not a neutral description: it stacks the deck against them." No one has ever produced a reason why, if God exists, he would be unwilling or unable to perform a miracle. So unless we can be absolutely certain that God does not exist, miracles are possible. And if miracles are possible it’s neither valid nor honest to blindly assume a priori that they’ve never occurred.

Moreover, a miracle can be perceived by the senses like any other event and thus can be supported by historical testimony. Because of this, testimony to a miracle is not nullified by the regular order of events. As William Lane Craig, another philosopher, writes in Reasonable Faith,

Of course, a historian could be so deeply prejudiced in favor of naturalism that he resolutely refuses to accept any miraculous hypothesis. But that is just a fact of psychology, which does not undermine the objectivity of history, any more than does the case of a Marxist historian who shuts his eyes to un-economic causes of historical development or a Confederate historian who refuses to acknowledge any responsibility of the South in bringing on the Civil War.

As a result of this bias, when certain scholars examine the historical evidence with regard to the resurrection of Jesus, some of them start by presupposing it couldn’t possibly have happened. As such, their conclusions that "therefore, it didn’t happen" are hopelessly circular. In Jesus Under Siege philosopher Gregory Boyd writes,

The obvious question that we must be asking ourselves through all of this is, why do these scholars assume that God could not have become a human being and that divinely inspired miracles cannot occur? On what basis can they be so confident about what can and cannot happen in history? By what means do they come to know so much about God and the nature of the world that they can confidently pronounce, prior to any investigation of the evidence, that God has never intervened into the world!? Wouldn’t you have to be God Himself to know this?

I think that part of the problem is that any miraculous explanation of an event is automatically considered to be ad hoc. The more a theory goes beyond what is known, the more ad hoc, or contrived, it is. But "miraculous" and "ad hoc" are not synonyms.

This was demonstrated to me in a debate between Craig and Robert Greg Cavin on the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. Cavin acknowledges that the historical evidence proves that Jesus was killed and buried, that the tomb was found empty a few days later, and that many people experienced what they understood to be appearances of Jesus alive from the dead. However, Cavin doesn’t accept the resurrection of Jesus as the best explanation of these facts: rather, he believes it’s more plausible that Jesus had an evil twin (no joke). They were separated at birth when one of the identical twins was switched with the baby to which Mary had given birth. Immediately after Jesus was killed, the twin just happened to arrive in Jerusalem and, learning of the events, decided to steal Jesus’ body and impersonate his long lost brother. This theory is ridiculously ad hoc in that there is virtually no evidence in support of it, and Cavin has to suggest more and more outrageous tidbits in order to plug all of the holes in it. There is no reason to think that Jesus had an identical twin brother; there is no reason to think that Mary wasn’t Jesus’ biological mother; there is no reason to think that Jesus and his twin would have grown up and lived geographically separated from each other; there is no reason to think that Jesus’ twin would have arrived in Jerusalem at exactly the time when Jesus was crucified; etc. There’s also blatant inconsistencies in this scenario: the twin would have to be ethical enough to want to continue Jesus’ work and teaching, but unethical enough to want to hoax the resurrection. He would have to be brilliant enough to have the idea occur to him (Jesus’ resurrection contradicted fundamental Jewish categories of thought) and moronic enough to want to impersonate someone who had just been condemned by the Jews as a blasphemer, and executed by the Romans for treason. Obviously, Cavin’s theory is completely contrived and ad hoc. By way of contrast, the only extra supposition we have to make to accept the resurrection is that a God capable of doing it exists -- and since most people already believe in God, this wouldn’t be an additional supposition.

Some also get nervous that any miraculous event would demonstrate that we live in a capricious universe, since any miracle would supposedly be an entirely arbitrary act of God. But, of course, this is false. With regards to Jesus’ resurrection, for example, the Messianic expectation of the Jewish people, the uniqueness of Jesus’ life, and the relevance that it has for one of the most fundamental aspects of human experience (death) makes it about as far removed from caprice and arbitrariness as anything could be.

20 comments:

Anonymous
said...

So unless we can be absolutely certain that God does not exist, miracles are possible. And if miracles are possible it’s neither valid nor honest to blindly assume a priori that they’ve never occurred.

Am I correct that from your reasoning the miracle-events in the NT cannot be taken as evidence divinity? After all, we can only conclude the events are miracle-events if we already know God exists; absent the God-exists speculation, the event would just be an improbable one arising from natural cause and effect, right?

By what criteria do you decide an event happened not though natural physical processes, but by the creator of the universe interrupting cause and effect?

Hi Bino, thanks for commenting again. You write, "we can only conclude the events are miracle-events if we already know God exists." No. My claim is that we should begin our examinations from an agnostic standpoint, where we don't know whether God exists or not, and so therefore we don't know whether miracles can take place or not. We could therefore allow historical evidence determine whether a miraculous hypothesis is better than any naturalistic hypothesis. If it is, then this would be evidence of a miracle; which would then also be evidence that God exists.

Whether a miraculous hypothesis is superior to its naturalistic alternatives can be determined by applying the standard tests of historical reliability. William Lane Craig discusses these at length in his books Reasonable Faith, The Son Rises, his essay in Jesus Under Fire, and elsewhere. He usually applies the criteria presented by C. Behan McCullagh in his book Justifying Historical Descriptions. So I would just refer you to those texts.

My claim is that we should begin our examinations from an agnostic standpoint, where we don't know whether God exists or not, and so therefore we don't know whether miracles can take place or not. We could therefore allow historical evidence determine whether a miraculous hypothesis is better than any naturalistic hypothesis. If it is, then this would be evidence of a miracle; which would then also be evidence that God exists.

So then god does not exist , not in the sense that butterflies and planets exist. Those you can point to and say, "Here it is, see." So in that sense god does not exist. If He did, you'd have said, "Here He is, see." But you didn't.

And in the sense that gravity exists, where you can't point to some material thing, but you can point to it's effect, god doesn't exist that way either, I guess. Not according to your theory.

So God apparently "exists" only in the sense that He is an abstract logical construction. A tautology then, whose features depend entirely on your axioms.

Whether a miraculous hypothesis is superior to its naturalistic alternatives can be determined by applying the standard tests of historical reliability

I very much doubt that is true. Are you saying you are unable to state the case, or that you're not willing to?

Again, on what grounds may one conclude that an event happened not though natural physical processes, but by the creator of the universe interrupting cause and effect?

Which other historical events do you analyze in light of the possibility of miracles? A Civil War historian might have to deal with multiple accounts of a battle that differ as to details such as where a particular officer was on the battlefield or whether he was killed at the beginning of the battle or at the end. If we allow for the possibility of miracles, do we have any justification for rejecting the possibility that he supernaturally appeared at two places at the same time or that he supernaturally came back to life during the battle and died a second time?

Historian spend a lot of time trying to make sense of conflicting reports. Since we can always posit some supernatural intervention, there is always the possibility that all the reports can be taken at face value. How could we ever conclude that any of the conflicting reports was wrong?

Bino, you're being deliberately (I hope) obtuse. When I say we should begin an investigation of something from an agnostic standpoint, I'm not talking about the metaphysical question of God's existence, I'm saying we should be agnostic about the conclusion. We shouldn't start by presupposing our conclusion. That's just basic and obvious. So when we examine whether event X took place, we should not start by assuming it did and twisting all evidence into an argument for it, nor should we start by assuming it didn't and twisting all evidence into an argument against it. We should start by assuming it may have taken place and it may not have, and let the evidence decide.

Moreover, the statement that we should be agnostic about our conclusions is obviously methodological not ontological. When someone investigates something objectively, we don't expect them to cease having the beliefs about it that they have, we just expect them to not let those beliefs influence their investigation. And again, this should be obvious.

I'm pretty sure you know this and you're just trying to manufacture objections regardless of what I actually say. I mean, if I said we should start by assuming a miracle took place, you would have objected, right? If I said we should assume one didn't take place, you would have also jumped on it. I say we shouldn't assume either that one did or didn't take place, and you have a problem with that. So I think it's obvious that your objections are just knee-jerk reactions to my comments, regardless of their content.

So then god does not exist , not in the sense that butterflies and planets exist. Those you can point to and say, "Here it is, see." So in that sense god does not exist. If He did, you'd have said, "Here He is, see." But you didn't.

Right, God is not physical, so obviously I wouldn't say, "Here, physically observe this non-physical thing." Your argument would only hold if I were saying God is physical, which no one claims. Obviously.

And in the sense that gravity exists, where you can't point to some material thing, but you can point to it's effect, god doesn't exist that way either, I guess. Not according to your theory.

Dude, I'm pointing to an effect and saying, "Look, God exists." If I'm saying a miracle took place, then obviously -- obviously -- I'm saying a physical effect took place, and we can infer God's existence from it.

So God apparently "exists" only in the sense that He is an abstract logical construction. A tautology then, whose features depend entirely on your axioms.

How does that follow from anything I've said? You really need to take a breath, you're just rambling here.

"Whether a miraculous hypothesis is superior to its naturalistic alternatives can be determined by applying the standard tests of historical reliability"

I very much doubt that is true.

Really? Without even knowing what they are? On what grounds? How were these grounds derived? On what basis do you believe those grounds to be reliable?

Are you saying you are unable to state the case, or that you're not willing to?

I'm saying, "Here, check out these references that not only explain what these criteria are, but apply them to examples and the specific example in question here. These criteria are very detailed and would require a great deal of space to exposit, and a comments section with limits on post lengths is not suited for such lengthy exposition." Of course, you could just admit that you have no intention of learning what these criteria are because they might not let you believe what you want, but that's probably asking too much.

Again, on what grounds may one conclude that an event happened not though natural physical processes, but by the creator of the universe interrupting cause and effect?

The same grounds by which we determine other events. It's called abduction or "inference to the best explanation." All science as well as history assumes it.

How were those criteria derived?

By people thinking really hard about it for a long time. Try it.

On what basis do you believe those criteria to be reliable?

Because they have shown themselves to be reliable. All science and history presupposes inference to the best explanation. If these criteria are unsound you're going to have to throw out all science and history to be consistent. Are you prepared to do that? Or are you just flailing around trying to pretend you have a principled objection to God's existence? I think everyone can tell what it looks like.

Hi Vinny, thanks for your comment. You ask if we allow miraculous explanations into our history, how can there be any justifiable stopping point, since virtually any conclusion could be defended by saying God performed some miracle.

I gave some of the reasons why I disagree with this in the post. We could explain why a miraculous explanation is less ad hoc than the non-miraculous explanations. The example I gave was the evil twin theory which is obviously more ad hoc than the resurrection. For many other claims of a miracle, the miraculous hypothesis would be more ad hoc. So in other words, claiming that God can act in the world does not give us grounds for thinking he does so arbitrarily. We can still apply standard criteria of historicity.

Another issue I mentioned is relevance; given the Messianic expectation of the Jewish people, and that Jesus was crucified for claiming to be the embodiment of God's ultimate revelation, his resurrection acquires some very specific meaning. Pannenberg wrote that the significance of the resurrection is not that some guy came back to life, it's that this particular guy did.

I also addressed this a little in my responses to Bino. The criteria by which we determine whether a miracle took place are the criteria of inference to the best explanation. If a miraculous hypothesis is superior than its naturalistic alternatives in meeting these criteria, then we would be justified in accepting that a miracle took place, and therefore that God exists.

The question remains, where else in the study of history would you advocate that scholars consider the possibility of miracles in reaching conclusions about what most likely happened? It may turn out in most cases that the supernatural explanation is not the most satisfying, however, there is no way to know this unless historians make it a regular practice to consider the possibility of miraculous intervention when evaluating the evidence.

I am also confused as to how historians are to judge whether a possible supernatural intervention would be arbitrary or not. I have always thought that the zombie saints of Matthew 27:51-53 was a pretty arbitrary miracle, but I don't see how the inability to discern God's purposes could give a historian a principled basis to reject the possibility of a supernatural explanation.

The question remains, where else in the study of history would you advocate that scholars consider the possibility of miracles in reaching conclusions about what most likely happened?

In places where there is a specific reason to consider the possibility of a supernatural explanation. Then I think they would have to be taken on a case-by-case basis. Wherever a supernatural explanation proves superior to its naturalistic alternatives (by being less ad hoc or having greater explanatory scope for example) then the supernatural explanation should be preferred.

It may turn out in most cases that the supernatural explanation is not the most satisfying, however, there is no way to know this unless historians make it a regular practice to consider the possibility of miraculous intervention when evaluating the evidence.

When should historians consider that some historical development was caused by a tsunami or a meteor strike or some other natural but very uncommon event? Should they have to consider such possibilities for virtually every historical development or only when there is a specific reason for considering them? I think the obvious answer is that they only need consider such possibilities when they have specific reasons for doing so, and I think this would be true of supernatural explanations as well.

I am also confused as to how historians are to judge whether a possible supernatural intervention would be arbitrary or not. I have always thought that the zombie saints of Matthew 27:51-53 was a pretty arbitrary miracle,

The fact that you make a distinction between this and other miracles demonstrates that you recognize that some miracles are less plausible or more ad hoc or weirder than others.

but I don't see how the inability to discern God's purposes could give a historian a principled basis to reject the possibility of a supernatural explanation.

It's not a matter of determining what God's will is, it's that the hypothesis itself is unlikely because it posits all sorts of fanciful connections between insignificant events while ignoring more relevant events that don't fit the narrative. The problem with ad hoc hypotheses is that they're contrived; conspiracy theories are ad hoc, for example, because they consist of a string of these dubious connections. Virtually any claim could be defended by such tactics. My point in this post is that not all supernatural explanations fall victim to this objection.

Can you give me any examples other than the events described in the New Testament of what might be a specific reason to consider the possibility of a supernatural explanation? I can think of types of evidence that might point towards a tsunami or a meteor because we have empirical data on such phenomena and we understand what kind of effects they are likely to produce according to the laws of nature. We have no empirical data on the supernatural, however, and no basis for saying that any particular set of circumstances is any more consistent with a supernatural cause than any other.

Can you give me any examples other than the events described in the New Testament of what might be a specific reason to consider the possibility of a supernatural explanation?

How about the claims of miracles in other world religions? How about Muhammad's flight to Jerusalem? Some Jews claim miracles took place during the 1948 war. Or we could also look at claims of miracles in Christian history, like Fatima.

The reason to consider them for investigation would be the same reason to consider the vast majority of other alleged historical events: namely, that people claimed event X happened.

I can think of types of evidence that might point towards a tsunami or a meteor because we have empirical data on such phenomena and we understand what kind of effects they are likely to produce according to the laws of nature.

In the post, I wrote, "a miracle can be perceived by the senses like any other event and thus can be supported by historical testimony. Because of this, testimony to a miracle is not nullified by the regular order of events." So I would argue that one test for whether a miraculous explanation should be allowed is precisely if it does produce empirical effects. For example, if the claim is that someone rose from the dead, an obvious empirical effect would be that his tomb or grave is empty.

I think you're suggesting (I may be wrong) that with meteors and tsunamis, we sometimes have scientific evidence in addition to historical evidence. That is, if we have claims that "a star fell from the sky" in a certain area 1500 years ago, then, given the right circumstances, there might also be scientific evidence that a meteor struck. But it seems obvious to me that this could easily not be the case, so the additional evidence would not be required for us to suggest a meteor strike as a historical hypothesis. At any rate, the historical assessment of the "meteor strike theory" would be based on whether it meets the standard tests of historical hypotheses. It would certainly be nice if there was some additional evidence from another field, but I don't see why it would be necessary.

We have no empirical data on the supernatural, however, and no basis for saying that any particular set of circumstances is any more consistent with a supernatural cause than any other.

I think you're saying we have no basis for predicting a miracle before it happens. No moment seems privileged in this regard. But again, there are plenty of natural phenomena that this would apply to as well. Even today we can't predict most meteor strikes. Does this inability to differentiate any particular set of circumstances from another as being more likely to experience a meteor strike beforehand mean we can't offer them as historical hypotheses? Of course not. There are plenty of surprises in history, events that no one predicted. That does not mean that those events are under a cloud of suspicion or that they make for inferior historical hypotheses.

My apologies if I'm reading things into your comments that you didn't intend, but I think you're suggesting that since we can't predict miracles and that no moment seems privileged, that they are therefore maximally improbable. But 1) again, this would apply to plenty of natural events such as meteor strikes. 2) Apart from a theophany, we don't have any way of knowing how probable or improbable it is that God would perform a miracle beforehand. My whole point is that we should start from an agnostic perspective where we don't know whether a miracle took place or not; we don't know whether it is likely, but we also don't know whether it is unlikely. You seem to be suggesting that since we don't know how probable it is, we can therefore consider it maximally improbable. But that rigs the game beforehand rather than letting the evidence decide. 3) Regardless, to claim that we can't predict them beforehand doesn't mean that we can't offer them as hypotheses afterwards.

Let's suppose that you were trying to explain the sudden disappearance of people on a particular island. Among the possible hypothesis might be a tsunami, a meteor strike, and a plague. Each of these might be expected to produce different observable effects, e.g., on the vegetation on the island and in the surrounding waters. Given the passage of enough time, there might not be enough evidence to make a determination but there exists the possibility of finding evidence that is more consistent with one of the phenomena than the others.

This possibility does not exist with respect to a supernatural explanation because there is no evidence that can be said to be inconsistent with the supernatural explanation. Any evidence that points to any natural explanation would also be consistent with a supernatural explanation.

1. To say that any evidence would be consistent with a supernatural explanation is to say that a supernatural explanation would be contrived or ad hoc, since you could use such an explanation to explain virtually anything. For most cases such an explanation would indeed be ad hoc. But this is not the case for all supernatural explanations. I gave the specific example of Jesus' resurrection. Whatever you think of this claim otherwise, it is not an ad hoc explanation of the (alleged) facts. It could still be false, it could be a bad explanation for other reasons, but it's not ad hoc.

2. A supernatural explanation should only be considered if we have specific reasons for considering it. This is true for most (not all) historical hypotheses. If we don't have a specific reason to consider a hypothesis, we generally don't need to consider it. If we don't have a specific reason to consider a supernatural claim (such as that there are multiple reports that a miracle happened) then to include it in the pool of live possibilities would probably be ad hoc.

3. Your claim that we couldn't know what any effects of a supernatural event would be is simply false. Again, if the claim is that someone rose from the dead, an obvious effect would be that the tomb or grave is empty, or that people saw the person alive, then saw him dead, then saw him alive again.

4. Your objection would apply to natural events that are unpredictable. The fact that they're unpredictable doesn't mean that there couldn't be specific evidence for it afterwards.

According to Merriam-Webster on-line, "ad hoc" means "for the particular end or case at hand without consideration of wider application." Since history seems to work just fine in every other inquiry it makes without ever resorting to supernatural explanations, the resurrection would seem to meet the textbook definition of "ad hoc."

That would apply to any unique event, including natural ones. Obviously Merriam-Webster is not trying to define unique events as ad hoc, because then we would have to throw out quite a bit of history that is universally accepted. If we have specific reasons to consider something as a historical hypothesis, then it is not ad hoc.

At any rate, Merriam-Webster is giving a definition of common usage. They're defining ad hoc in a way to account for all its uses, not for a particular, technical use. For example an ad hoc committee is a committee that's formed to solve a particular problem, with no application beyond that problem. To take that concept of ad hoc and apply it to the way scientists and historians use it when inferring to the best explanation is invalid.

In these fields, ad hoc means contrived. For example, you argued that supernatural explanations are problematic because we can contrive one to fit any set of circumstances. I responded that this simply doesn't mean that all supernatural explanations are thereby contrived; some fit the facts very well. In the same way, Marxists contrive economic explanations to fit any set of circumstances. This doesn't mean that all economic explanations are contrived. Sometimes an economic explanation is the best one.

I think what I am arguing is this: We can generalize from specific knowledge and observations of tsunamis and meteor strikes to evidence that might provide confirmation in other cases. So even though these are rare events, the investigation of any specific instance is based on general knowledge.

When it comes to the supernatural, we have no data from which to generalize. The first problem is the lack of confirmed supernatural events from which to mine data. The second problem is that the only thing that seems to tie together alleged supernatural events is the allegation itself.

The historian who proposes that a rare natural event occurred will seek evidence that is common to that particular type of event. The historian who proposes that a supernatural event occurred cannot do this unless he can say that there is some evidence that is common to supernatural events. What would that be other than the fact that someone has claimed that a supernatural event took place? That is why I believe that a natural explanation, even if based on a rare occurrence, is not ad hoc while the supernatural explanations.

You are correct that I believe that supernatural explanations could be applied very widely, but that is due to the lack of general principles that would allow the historian to distinguish between natural and supernatural causes.

BTW, I have requested McCullough’s book through inter-library loan. I am interested in seeing a fuller explanation of his criteria and examples of their application. I am particularly interested in how one assesses “ad hoc-ness.”

I started writing my response and realized that it was essentially a blog post. So I'll make it part 2 of this series.

McCullagh defines ad hoc as involving "fewer new suppositions about the past not already implied by existing knowledge." He actually applies his criteria to the resurrection and concludes that it surpasses its naturalistic rivals in some of them but not in others, so it's difficult to assess its historicity. Ad hoc-ness is one of the areas where he says the resurrection fails. Obviously I disagree with him for the reasons I've been giving. Craig argues about this fairly extensively in the references I gave above.

I read McCullagh about ten years ago right after I first read Craig's books and articles that reference him.

This is the second time you started leaving obnoxious comments as Bino, then switched to your blogger ID when that approach didn't work out. And now it's the second time you've passive-aggressively suggested that I haven't read the books I'm referencing. I appreciate some of the concerns you've expressed, but I just don't see any reason why I should continue putting up with this.

"Agent Intellect" is a philosophical term from the De Anima tradition. In giving my blog this title I am not trying to imply anything about its (or my) intellectual credentials. I am merely signaling my interest in, and occasional blogposts on, philosophy. The views expressed here are my own and should not be imputed to any past, present, or future employer or affiliation.

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